Many readers won’t buy your book if it doesn’t have at least a few reviews. More reviews also puts you higher on Amazon’s lists, which means your ebook is more likely to show up in a search or as a recommendation from Amazon. This means reviews are vital to your book’s success, but how do you get more reviews for your ebook?
Getting Reviews for Your Ebook: Ask your readers
1. When you let readers know through your newsletter about new releases, ask them to write a review as well when they finish the book. Many readers are willing to post a review but just forget to do so. Building a newsletter list should be one of your first priorities because this is one of the quickest ways to get reviews.
2. Send a copy of your book to a list of beta readers and ask them to post a review in return.
3. At the end of all your ebooks, ask readers to leave a review if they enjoyed the book. Include a link so they can easily leave a review. Oh, and discounting your book for a time so that more people see your request can often substantially increase your number of reviews.
Getting Reviews for Your Ebook: Ask readers of your genre
4. Research book bloggers who review books. Find one who would be interested in your genre and submit your book for them to review. The payment is the free book; no other payment should be required.
5. Find books similar to yours on Amazon and contact the readers who gave that book a good review. Let them know that you saw their review and that you’ve written a similar book you think they will enjoy. Then ask them to write a review of the book in return for a free copy of it.
6. Find readers on Goodreads who have read and reviewed books similar to yours and ask them to review your book as well in return for a free copy of the book.
Using a service
There are book services out there as well that for a fee will put your book up on their website for reviewers to find, read, and download. These services legitimately pass on the books to readers, who receive no compensation. But there are also services that pay people to write reviews, and these you should avoid.
Some Quick Tips
Amazon has stringent review policies. They do not allow “any compensation other than a copy of the item to be reviewed,” so if you send your reviewer a gift card to buy the book, the review could be taken down (because the gift card could be used for something else). We suggest you send the reviewer a copy of the ebook via email. Those who review your book should disclose that they received it for free in return for an honest review.
When asking a reader to review the book, keep your request short and well-written. Do not pressure them to do it right away-they probably have other books to review, and a lot of pressure may just make them say no.
If your book is receiving poor reviews, revamping the text or making sure the cover and blurb reflect the contents can make a big difference.
Originally published at https://mybookcave.com on October 26, 2018.
